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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24048049">My Thoughts On You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliebird/pseuds/elliebird'>elliebird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>ALL THE FLUFF, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, M/M, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:00:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>987</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24048049</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliebird/pseuds/elliebird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an endless list of the whys, the reasons, the ways Forrest loves Alex.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Forrest Long/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>84</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>My Thoughts On You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I wanted to write Forrest being desperately, hopelessly in love with Alex. I'm not sure what, or why, this is. </p><p>Title thanks to the Band Camino.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In Roswell, on an olive green Smith Corona typewriter, Forrest wrote. He wrote on a laptop, on napkins, on scraps of paper. He wrote on anything he could find if he was out and wanted to remember. </p><p>He wrote a book. A hundred and fifty thousand words - thirty chapters - about a war that took place five decades before he was born. He wrote - and scrapped - the outline of a queer graphic novel about nazi hunters. He contributed articles for history publications and online academic journals, reviews of the local music scene for a blog out of Santa Fe and a scathing email about the recall of Buffy’s favorite chew toy.</p><p>For himself, there was an ancient leather notebook, scars in the black cover, the edges frayed from use. Over pages and pages and close to a year, he wrote. Not the day to day. It wasn’t a diary of events or a retelling. It was a record. Carefully handwritten details to hold onto. </p><p>The afternoon he walked into the barn on his family’s property with a bale of hay to find Alex standing in the open doors. The way Alex held out his hand, the smile he offered. The memory of him sitting beside Guerin underneath that old tree, shadows on his face and sunlight making him glow. </p><p>A Saturday night at the Pony. The surprise of seeing him walk through the small audience to take a seat at <i>his</i> table. Making small talk afterwards, looking across the table and realizing he wanted to know more.</p><p>The way Alex walked into a room. The way he looked people square in the eye, unwavering. The quiet commanding way he spoke, like he was used to being listened to.</p><p>The heartache Alex carried, decades old and also fresh. The way he wore it, like a favorite jacket he wasn’t ready to let go. </p><p>The first time he apologized. The quiet certainty in his voice, the earnest way he asked if they could try again, the way he covered Forrest’s hand with his own and refrained from making any promises.</p><p>That flawless second date, following Alex up a cliff face for a breathtaking view over the dessert with the sun beginning to sink lower. The colors of the sky, the way the wind rustled around them, the ease Forrest felt. </p><p>The taste of Alex’s mouth the first time they kissed, outside the Crashdown with the sun rising and the town waking up, running on adrenaline and unable to keep their hands off one another. Alex smiling into his mouth, laughing and sounding as giddy as Forrest felt.</p><p>The place beneath Alex’s ear, where the skin was vulnerable. The way Alex breathed out and shifted, reaching for Forrest and asking wordlessly for Forrest’s mouth there on the slope of his throat where his pulse beat wildly. </p><p>Going to bed together for the first time. Alex showing his scars, most of them, to Forrest. The way his eyes slipped shut when Forrest brushed his fingers over the skin where his knee had been destroyed, puckered and sewn back together. The sound he made when Forrest kissed him there. </p><p>Their first real fight. The knot in Forrest’s chest, the certainty that this was the end, the final crack in Alex’s defense. The hours after, Forrest listening to the quiet confessions Alex felt compelled to share, their fingers entwined and Forrest’s lips on Alex’s later, the taste of salt on his mouth.</p><p>The scar above his eyebrow, the wide pink shape of his mouth, the way his eyes changed when he smiled from the inside out and not that cynical, sardonic smile he wore when he was around someone he didn’t trust. </p><p>The way he looked on a lazy Sunday, in his ancient, threadbare Air Force t-shirt and faded sweats, his prosthetic tucked away. The way he smiled right before he leaned in, let his voice drop to a whisper and suggest they go take a nap together. </p><p>The way Alex leaned into him, resting his weight against Forrest to ease the pressure off his wounded leg, letting him support Alex in a way he let few others. </p><p>The way his hair fell across his forehead. The soft warmth of his skin when he was waking up, blinking into early morning light and shifting to his side, reaching for Forrest before he’d opened his eyes. The way his lips parted on an exhale when Forrest kissed his cheek, the curve of his jaw, the tip of his chin. The calm of those mornings when anything felt possible. </p><p>The first time Forrest spent a night at the Pony, getting to know Alex’s friends and realizing just how much of himself Alex kept private, like he was turning down the saturation on who he was so he would fit. Knowing the weight, the importance, of getting all of Alex. </p><p>The way he showed up for his family despite the terrible, heartbreaking ways they’d let him down, and kept letting him down. </p><p>The morning after the first night he stayed, when he kissed Forrest beneath a fort of blankets during a late spring snowstorm and everything felt like it was falling into place.</p><p>The way he was slowly beginning to find himself again after years of thinking he had to mute who he was to be accepted. </p><p>The way Alex said <i>I love you</i>. The first time and every single time after. </p><p>The first time he played his guitar for Forrest on stage at open mic. The second, the third. The first time he sang someone else’s song in front of a room full of strangers. The way he said a breathless, sincere <i>thank you</i> afterwards, holding onto Forrest as his pulse beat frantically. </p><p>The day he started showing up for himself. </p><p>The way Alex curled up in his favorite spot in Forrest’s tiny house, with an old leather notebook and a note that said <i>happy anniversary</i>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading. I'm on <a href="https://elliebirdthings.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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